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Adaptation of Sporocytophaga myxococcoides to Sugars
Abstract
Summary: Strains of Sporocytophaga myxococcoides were cultivated in a mineral nutrient medium with glucose. In media containing 0·1% glucose sterilized by Seitzfiltration growth readily occurred, whereas in corresponding media with 0·5 and 1·0% glucose there was a pronounced lag in development that sometimes lasted for several weeks.
The duration of the lag period appeared to depend on the number of cells in the inoculum, and could be diminished by incubation at 25 ° instead of 30°, although the latter temperature is nearer to the optimum temperature for growth. Apparently adaptation to the high glucose concentration takes place during the lag period.
Cells adapted to high glucose concentrations grow readily in media with the same concentration of mannose, whereas non-adapted cultures do not grow in these media, or only after a long lag period. None of the strains investigated showed any development in media in which either fructose or xylose was the sole source of carbon; nevertheless, these sugars did not inhibit, or only slightly, inhibited cellulose decomposition.
Stanier’s observation, that the development of Sp. myxococcoides is inhibited when the glucose is autoclaved in the nutrient medium, was confirmed. If, however, due care be taken to avoid an alkaline reaction, glucose autoclaved either separately or in the medium sustains growth in the same way as does glucose sterilized by filtration.
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© Society for General Microbiology, 1949